But now that China's new president emperor has cemented his grip on power by installing political allies on the Politburo and successfully lobbying to have his name enshrined in China's Constitution, the exchanges are taking tenative steps to figure out if it's safe to do business in China again, and what constraints would apply to their operations going forward.

And while providing an online exchange for fiat-to-digital currency transactions is still expressly prohibited, a couple of the country's biggest exchanges are rolling out an OTC model that resembles the popular peer-to-peer bitcoin trading website Local Bitcoins, and which will "also support fiat currency transactions."

Here's CoinDesk:

Some of China's top bitcoin exchanges are now shifting to the over-the-counter (OTC) market in the wake of a crackdown by regulators in the country. In announcements made on Oct. 31, both OKEx and Huobi Pro said they will introduce peer-to-peer trading platforms that support fiat currency transactions, including the Chinese yuan, as an alternative for the country's domestic cryptocurrency investors.